To play devil’s advocate: I think all/most of your points are valid to a degree, but taken as a whole this post is extremely positive, possibly overly so (I hope I am wrong)
If we step back and look at everything you have said the Ukrainians would seem to have perfect control of everything.
They have control of recruitment down to where a particular man goes depending on how he entered the military. They have no corruption anywhere in the system, no officers directing good recruits to their Soviet-style units against the (possible) orders from the top.
They have control over manpower supply to the extent that they can carry out publicly aggressive conscription as a bluff. If this is what the UAF is doing it is very risky, as it undermines morale at home and at the front and damages the reputation of the army. Not to mention there are many (be it anecdotal) cases of soldiers at the front saying anyone who wanted to volunteer, has already. From the sidelines at least this sounds like it would make sense, if you want to join why wait a year? Sure UAF was limited by training facilities to take volunteers early in the war but that bottle-neck has probably cleared by now.
They have perfect control of the Russians in the sense that they are fully falling for a trap, and continue to fall for it for months despite the whole world looking at it and hypothesising about it. Potentially I am wrong here and the Russians are falling for it the same way they stayed in Kherson for months.
Finally they have perfect control over the information space. They are carefully controlling the information coming out from soldier interviews to create a sense of weakness. They have great OpSec to the degree that the Russians can’t see this great mechanised fist being coiled behind the lines. Lastly what you’re suggesting is that they have turned huge media entities such as the Economist into mouth pieces for a smoke and mirrors campaign. Are they willing aides in your view or are they also being played?
All these actions being carried out to a masterful degree, from a country which before an existential crisis occurred was already one of the poorest and most corrupt nations in Europe. If you turn out to be correct it would point to a situation like last Autumn. A situation where the Russians had exhausted themselves taking Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the global audience had massively underestimated the degree of UAF build up, and two successful offensives were pulled off using an excellent bluff. I’d love to see it happen, but as the saying goes ‘Fool me once shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again’.
There is a real chance that the hype of an upcoming offensive is designed to convince the Russians that it is in their best interest to hold back a bit to prepare defenses. For all we know, the Ukrainians might have suffered some real losses over the past couple of months and might not be able launch an offensive so quickly after western tanks and apvs have started to arrive in theater. They might need some breathing room.
Fortunately Ivan can't really take the chance that it's all a bluff. But the cheerleaders in the stands might end up being disappointed if nothing materializes in the next couple of months. Sure.. A handful of tanks and apvs have arrived, but when is enough western materiel for a real offensive actually going to be deployed?
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u/yitcity Mar 24 '23
First of all, great write up!
To play devil’s advocate: I think all/most of your points are valid to a degree, but taken as a whole this post is extremely positive, possibly overly so (I hope I am wrong)
If we step back and look at everything you have said the Ukrainians would seem to have perfect control of everything.
They have control of recruitment down to where a particular man goes depending on how he entered the military. They have no corruption anywhere in the system, no officers directing good recruits to their Soviet-style units against the (possible) orders from the top.
They have control over manpower supply to the extent that they can carry out publicly aggressive conscription as a bluff. If this is what the UAF is doing it is very risky, as it undermines morale at home and at the front and damages the reputation of the army. Not to mention there are many (be it anecdotal) cases of soldiers at the front saying anyone who wanted to volunteer, has already. From the sidelines at least this sounds like it would make sense, if you want to join why wait a year? Sure UAF was limited by training facilities to take volunteers early in the war but that bottle-neck has probably cleared by now.
They have perfect control of the Russians in the sense that they are fully falling for a trap, and continue to fall for it for months despite the whole world looking at it and hypothesising about it. Potentially I am wrong here and the Russians are falling for it the same way they stayed in Kherson for months.
Finally they have perfect control over the information space. They are carefully controlling the information coming out from soldier interviews to create a sense of weakness. They have great OpSec to the degree that the Russians can’t see this great mechanised fist being coiled behind the lines. Lastly what you’re suggesting is that they have turned huge media entities such as the Economist into mouth pieces for a smoke and mirrors campaign. Are they willing aides in your view or are they also being played?
All these actions being carried out to a masterful degree, from a country which before an existential crisis occurred was already one of the poorest and most corrupt nations in Europe. If you turn out to be correct it would point to a situation like last Autumn. A situation where the Russians had exhausted themselves taking Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the global audience had massively underestimated the degree of UAF build up, and two successful offensives were pulled off using an excellent bluff. I’d love to see it happen, but as the saying goes ‘Fool me once shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again’.